Who do you blame? Image from NASA.
Katrina
This is the story of the hurricane
September 25, 2005
The devastation of Hurricane Katrina revealed the Bush Administration's incompetence to the world. It also tragically revealed the enormous gap that exists between the rich and poor in America. It’s unfortunate that it took a natural disaster to bring the media into poor urban neighborhoods. The powerful images seen in homes throughout the country underscore the economic divisions in this country. Our greatness will be measured by the extent that we overcome these divisions. We hope that President Bush’s rhetoric signals that the hurricane has served as an important wake-up call for this administration:
As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets.
Whether or not the President follows through on this, he deserves credit for accepting blame (which he has never done before for anything) for the federal government’s horrendously slow response and for addressing the link between the history of racism and poverty. Such a public recognition does not come easily for a president with as mean-spirited and ideological a base as this one's. In fact, he received a substantial amount of criticism for this speech from numerous Rightwing media sources, who believe that hurricane Katrina illustrates the fundamental defects of “the underclass” and are encouraging Bush to use New Orleans as a laboratory for conservative policies.
MYTH: Hurricane Katrina is both a condemnation of liberal policy and an opportunity for conservative economic policy
New Orleans was partly a catastrophe of the welfare state, which has subsidized inner cities with countless billions of dollars throughout the past 30 years, with little to show for it except more social breakdown.
-- Rich Lowry, “’Bold, Persistent Experimentation,” National Review Online, 09/20/05
Fortunately, Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) understands this. He said in a statement this week that extending the successful 2003 investment tax cuts in the current reconciliation bill is a priority given the present economic uncertainty created by the hurricane…
In fact, the senator should go further by adding some form of immediate death-tax relief to the reconciliation bill. Despite the rhetoric that this would be tax relief for the rich, the reality is that the death tax is responsible for the destruction of a quarter million jobs every year. Beyond that, several studies have demonstrated that its repeal would actually boost federal revenues since it would stimulate economic growth…
The House should also move forward and pass the GROW accounts bill, dedicating Social Security surpluses to personal retirement accounts. Broader issues like fundamental tax reform, litigation reform, and regulatory reform will all contribute to our economic growth and prosperity. Their importance has increased, not diminished, because of the hurricane.
-- Mallory Factor, “Tax Cuts Are Katrina Relief,” National Review Online, 09/15/05
Our government should act immediately to put these displaced Americans in the jobs now held by illegal immigrants…
Meanwhile, the Senate voted $10 billion and then another $50 billion for hurricane relief, and that's all deficit spending. Why not take that money out of foreign aid handouts since we have an obligation to help our own first?
Why, for instance, should the taxpayers step forward to rebuild a home that was (a) located behind a levee and sitting below sea level, and (b) wasn't adequately insured?
During the past week I read story after story about how so many of New Orleans' middle and upper income residents were able to flee the city as Katrina approached, but the poor were left to fend for themselves. The difference here wasn't money. The difference here was attitude. It was the self-sufficient vs. the dependent. The evil rich and middle-income residents fled New Orleans because they are used to accepting the responsibility for their own welfare and safety. The poor stayed behind because they're mired in the sludge of generation after generation of dependency on government. The accomplished class knows that they bear the responsibility for meeting their own needs and providing for their safety. The poor by-and-large bear no such responsibility. To them, it's the government's job. Instead of taking responsibility for their own safety --- they just sat there, waiting for government to come and save them. The achievement-oriented residents of New Orleans were spared the horrors of the violence and filth that followed the flooding because they kept doing what they had been doing all along -- accepting responsibility. The poor were subjected to the violence and filth because they also kept doing what they had been doing all along -- depending on government.
Hurricane Katrina illustrated the truth behind the contention that poverty is a behavioral disorder.
-- Neal Boortz, “As Long as We Raise Taxes on the Rich,” 09/19/05
REALITY
The Rightwing media’s willingness to view Hurricane Katrina through their warped ideological prism is sickening in its disturbing revelations about their cynical opportunism. It’s one thing to come to the defense of President Bush by blaming Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. Intellectually honest individuals recognize that there is plenty of blame to assign to each of the three levels of government.
It is quite another thing to use the deaths of hundreds of New Orleans residents to promote ideology. Especially wacky right wingnut ideology. For Neal Boortz, whose disgusting diatribe against the victims of Hurricane Katrina revealed the darkness of the Rightwing heart, Katrina confirmed the fundamental laziness and irresponsibility of the poor. To the wingnut mind, the hurricane says less about the competence of FEMA than it says about the failings of impoverished New Orleans residents. It is the reliance on the welfare state that killed the victims of Katrina according to Boortz and Rich Lowry. Of course, it would be convenient for the conservatives if this were true because that would validate a radical Rightwing agenda that would eliminate the social safetynets, as well as a public role in education and job training.
But that's not the main point here. Poor people have less access to information, which means they were even less informed than other New Orleans residents about the severity of the hurricane. In addition, poor people are less likely to be able to afford cars and gas, which makes it difficult to flee the city without transportation provided by the government. Poor people also have less access to housing options outside of the city. Hotels are expensive and poor families are less likely to have family they can visit outside the city. Clearly, without a viable housing option outside of the hurricane’s range, it's hard to find shelter. Quite simply, it is more difficult for poor people to flee a hurricane than it is for everyone else and that has nothing to do with “their attitudes,” TANF or the EITC. There are many valid opinions about the root causes of poverty. Boortz's mean spirited lunacy is not among them. Even Bush agrees that poverty is a problem and the government must take an active role in combating it. This can be done without creating dependence on welfare.
If conservatives weren’t disparaging poor hurricane victims last week, they were offering up New Orleans as a laboratory for conservative policies. According to Phyllis Schaffly, the hurricane represents a great opportunity to kick illegal immigrants out of the country and cancel aid to poor African countries. According to Schaffly, “Our government should act immediately to put these displaced Americans in the jobs now held by illegal immigrants.” Wow, that really sounds like a logistical nightmare. Mallory Factor has a better idea. New Orleans residents won’t be safe until we kill the estate tax, privatize social security, replace the income tax with a National Sales Tax, and institute tort reform. We wonder just what these studies are she cites that prove the estate tax kills a quarter million jobs a year. We know some pretty good ones that show how the Bush tax cuts have ballooned the deficit. We also know the the deficit means we're borrowing billions a month from China, instead of investing in the infrastructure at home that creates economic opportunity and growth. If only those poor New Orleans residents didn’t have to pay taxes on the $650,000 home they inherited from their parents, then maybe we could rebuild the city.
MYTH: Bush has fought poverty harder than Bill Clinton
In 1996, the poverty level in the USA stood at 13.7 percent. In 2004, the poverty level was 12.7 percent, so Bush beats Clinton here by a full percentage point. To be fair, Clinton did bring the poverty rate down during his administration, while it has been rising slightly since 9/11…
-- Bill O’Reilly, “Democrats’ Poor Behavior About the Poor,” Human Events, 09/19/05
REALITY
If there were a Peabody award for policy analysis, O’Reilly wouldn’t win that either. The only thing more amusing than his decision to arbitrarily compare 1996 and 2004 is his adamant defense of that comparison as manifestly appropriate. According to O’Reilly, “The facts are halfway through. The poverty under Bush is down 1 percent. That's the fact and the only accurate measuring stick.” O’Reilly’s devotion to “the halfway through test” notwithstanding, it seems more appropriate to evaluate the poverty trends throughout each president’s terms. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, the poverty rate decreased each year; in contrast, the poverty rate has increased each year of George Bush’s presidency. Aside from the fact that O'Reilly is a known liar and bully, so he's probably making up the numbers, we prefer Clinton’s poverty record.
MYTH: The media has been too harsh on Bush’s handling of the Katrina disaster
In the spring of 1997, a massive snowfall led to flooding and levee breaking in North Dakota. Nobody blamed Bill Clinton’s administration for not realizing the levees were going to break. The political games didn’t start until summer, when the congressional GOP suicidally tried to hold up some flood aid to get political concessions out of the White House. It was quickly used against them. They quickly became the callous haters of disaster victims.
Clinton suffered positively zero media badgering for completely overdoing federal hurricane reactions.
-- Brent Bozell III, “Liberal Smiles at Disaster Time,” Media Research Center, 09/15/05
In retrospect, although the President was forced by the media to label some aspects of the response "inadequate," it was an extraordinary effort conducted in very difficult circumstances, in an area larger than the size of Great Britain, as criminals and gangs made it life-threatening to deliver supplies in a submerged city, New Orleans, where even some police officers were caught looting.
-- AIM Report, “Media Windbags Follow Hurricane-October A,” Accuracy in the Media, 09/16/05
REALITY
The Administration’s response to the hurricane was “an extraordinary effort?” Is Cliff talking about Bush's vacation? I’ll allow President Bush to debunk this claim: "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government…to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.” President Bush was so ashamed of the federal government’s response to Katrina that he effectively fired the FEMA Director and issued this rare mea culpa. And remember, Bush mea culpa's happen less frequently than Haley's Comet. If W himself is admitting failure, it's aburd that the ironically named AIM (Accuracy in Media) can't.
But was Clinton held to the same standard by the media? Not according to the Media Research Center, which bemoans the media’s failure to take Clinton to task for “overdoing federal hurricane reactions.” So the media failed to criticize Clinton for his policy of always erring on the side of caution with respect to hurricanes? Why would they? How many New Orleans residents wish President Bush would have “overdone” the federal response to Katrina.
And, by the way, according to Bozell, “the congressional GOP suicidally tried to hold up some flood aid to get political concessions out of the White House. It was quickly used against them.” First of all, whose side is Bozell on? Is he trying to make me dislike the congressional GOP even more? If so, it’s working. Secondly, the White House had the nerve to attack the GOP for playing politics with flood-relief funding? Whining is un-American.
